I’m sitting in my new home. A studio apartment in the corner of a 90-year-old building on the 6th floor. And I’m a little terrified. Or maybe overwhelmed is a better word? Intimidated, maybe? But also a little giddy and incredulous that I have this opportunity.

It wasn’t too long ago that we moved from Iowa…where the largest city is more than three times smaller than Seattle and I didn’t even live there, I lived in Iowa “City” which is about nine times smaller than Seattle.

I don’t really know that it’s the size of the city that matters. It’s maybe more that I haven’t yet known how I fit in out here in the West, and I certainly don’t know how I fit in a rather large, notably cool city.

We’ve moved four times to three different areas around the Sound since we moved here from Iowa a little over two years ago. We’ve been involved in two churches in three different areas. We’ve made very few friends. These are all probable factors to my overwhelm.

Rest assured, I’m thrilled that we have an opportunity to take this leap and make this adventurous choice of city life. It’s not comfortable, but it is incredible. And a little wild. I will say this, there is no way I’d be this adventurous if I wasn’t completely confident in who I am as Bryan’s wife. He anchors me, however cliche that sounds. And I’m so glad I’m doing this with him.

I think I really want to settle in here; in this tiny apartment in this big city. And I think I’m going to have more to say.

In the meantime, I’m going to catch my breath, spend some time with Jesus and start unpacking boxes.

she has my heart. she’s my one and only niece; the first and currently only duvick grandbaby around. she is so loved by the lot of us, and boy, she certainly has a big enough heart for all of us. i haven’t hugged her or seen her in person since she was a little over two years old, but she calls me “aunt lisagrace” or “my lisagrace” anyway. the last time i facetimed with her, she sang every single line of “let it go” and showed me her dance moves. seriously, her mom has raised a fantastic little girl. [HUGE shoutout to diana!]

i saw this super sweet dress a while back on my all time favorite craft blog, the Purl Bee. and knew i had the perfect little girl to make it for. the only hang up? i’ve tried and failed to learned how to crochet many a time. earlier this summer, as i was desperately trying to hold my crochetwork tightly enough (the tension is ridiculous! so much simpler when your work is on a stick!), i asked my friend Kaylee, “will i ever like crochet?!” she responded with sympathy, thankfully, and i kept on working at it, however reluctantly.

but the happy ending is this dress – look at it! i did it! i finally figured out the tension and it was truly a breeze after that. so quick! so easy! such a handy skill to have! such an adorable dress for my niece!

happy birthday, my love – so proud of you and i love your big heart. all credit goes to mya for being the only thing motivating enough to make me crochet.

I’ve long known that my love language is crafting. As in, I love loving people by making things for them. I like being the “crafty friend.”

I would estimate that I spend about 75% of my craft time making some specifically requested item for someone, or helping someone with an everyday type mending project. And for those of you who are in amazement of my lack of Etsy shop – I don’t have time to make all my friends things and make items to sell.

Truly, right now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My friends are my inspiration. They come up with these crazy ideas of things they want and I get to explore forward and create a new project! I love it. Seriously. And I love the happiness I’m able to bring the people I love by making them a one-of-a-kind gift or by helping them learn to sew or knit or by helping with a household project that requires some crafty ingenuity and know-how.

However, there is another, more secret reason I haven’t made the jump from friend-making to stranger-making. It’s the pressure. And the worry. And the wanting it to be perfect. Because when you make things for your friends, they are THRILLED and AMAZED. No matter what. Even if a hem is a little crooked. Even if there is a little snag in the fabric.

Maybe I just have the BEST, most AWESOME friends (I do). Seriously, friends, thanks for providing me with so much inspiration. And thanks for letting me practice on you.

I don’t know how to end this post. Because I’m honestly still in mid-thought about it. Should I let my fear of rejection conquer me? Probably not. Do I really want to go for this whole “selling my wears” thing? I don’t know. But it’s crossing my mind on a more regular basis, so that’s something.

So, I turned 26 a month ago. How did that happen? In early June, I started thinking about my “30 before 30” list…and how much I’ve accomplished, and how little I’ve accomplished at the same time. So much has changed since I last updated the list (freshly updated, btw)!

So much has changed, and yet I was thankful for this list; it serves as a good reminder of a) my 23 year old self and her desires, b) the fact that many of these things are still at the core of who I want to become as i get closer to 30 and c) the fact that life moves quickly, and it’s very easy to wind up without as many accomplishments as you’d hope.

So these are the things I’ve been thinking about in the months before and after my 26th birthday.

The single-most thing I am loving about my twenties is that I’m really learning a lot about myself. I love it, because I’ve never been so confident in who God made me. I think I got pretty lost in my own expectations of myself for most of my teenage years and early twenties. At this point in my short life, I’m officially in my upper twenties and almost every expectation I had for my life to this point has been completely slashed.

So I’m left without any more expectations (which, by the way, felt terrible when those were in the process of being ripped from me) but it’s really quite freeing. I’m just free to grow and be myself.

our first Seattle beach experience. warm sun, freezing cold water.

And with that realization in hand, I look at my little list and smile, because much of the list still accurately represents me as a person. I love that. When I wrote the list, it was with an air of dreaming and whimsy – so I’m thrilled that many of these things are who I’m growing into, because back then…it was only somewhat of a dream.

Using some items on the list, here’s a little life update for you – since it’s been so long since I’ve updated the blog.

We’re working toward paying off our debt, we had none, but then we decide to by a nice, almost new commuter car after we moved to Seattle. We’re hoping to be able to pay it off completely within about a year.

family hike day on hurricane ridge

While paying off our car, we’re also saving for a down payment on a house, which could take a while depending on how we end up buying a house. Houses are so. stinking. expensive. here. But rent is also expensive. We’re currently occupying 3+ rooms in Bryan’s parents house and it’s been really great to be able to save a bunch of money in the meantime.

5 year anniversary date!

We crossed over the 5 year line of marriage back in May – and what I’ve also realized is that it feels like we’ve been in transition for over 5 years as well. College, transferring colleges to help plant a church, moving across the country, the beginning of Bryan’s (slow-climbing) career. Yes, transition seems like a fitting word, don’t you think? But, of course, now I’m realizing that life will always, always, always feel like transition, even with miniature calm moments. So I’m starting to be done defining life as such.

my hair is finally long enough to start practicing my french braiding skills. this is one of my first goes.

I continue to be ambitiously crafty, but I still feeling like I have a lot of growing to do there as well. I can pretty much knit or sew anything now, but now I’m left to the decisions of what I want to knit or sew. I’m slowly figuring out my aesthetic when it comes to these things and I’m working on “my eye” for design, which hasn’t been extremely strong up to this point.

Overall, life is good. So very good. We’re enjoying each other, enjoying Washington and enjoying the ride of adulthood.

You may be thinking to yourself – what aunt celebrates their nephew’s 13 month birthday?! You’re right. It’s weird. But is it any less weird if I tell you that I thought of the PERFECT gift for my just-over-one-year-old nephew on his actual birthday, February 7th? And that it was just too perfect not to make for him so I got to work on it straight away even though I had no experience in this particular craft?

I’m a month late, but, in this case, I think it was worth it. Happy Birthday Jonah! I hope you love your soft squishy Gonzaga Blocks!

(Jenni – if you’re reading this, the tracking says the package is out for delivery today!)

Let’s be real – I fully realize that Jonah can’t yet read (though he’s very advanced and a genius baby and in the 200th percentile for everything) and he has no idea of the subliminal messaging attached to this particular gift. So I just want to go ahead and say that this gift is just as much for his mom (my sister-in-law) as it is for him. Jenni and Jobin went to Gonzaga for undergrad and fell in love almost immediately. They got married in Spokane and they are the BIGGEST fans of the Gonzaga basketball team. And did I mention that they were both cheerleaders (real, super in-shape cheerleaders) for the team all four years?

I honestly didn’t realize how intensely obsessed they were until this past year…Jonah has been decked out in Gonzaga gear since birth. They. love. this. team. And they would love nothing more than for Jonah to continue in their footsteps and attend Gonzaga in 17 years. And as Jonah’s Aunt & Uncle, we are also pro-Gonzaga, because Washington.

All to say, I’m all about playing my part in convincing Jonah that Gonzaga is the school for him.

After I drew some pictures to figure out my plan of action, I cut out my fabric. As I started to sew these together, I realized “I’ve never sewn anything cubed before…” Thankfully I figured it out pretty quickly.

The letters were the hardest part. I started to embroider them, but quickly realized that would take FOREVER. Then I tried using various stitches on my sewing machine to faux-embroider them and that didn’t work either. Then I decided to use felt, which was still difficult as I free-handed the letters with my new Xacto knife set (a story for another time – but shout out to Deb Mortvedt!) but the result was satisfying.

As a bonus, on the back side of two of the blocks I put additional characters so that you can flip them around to say “Go Zags!”

I loved the way they turned out, even if they were a month late. Happy Birthday Jonah! And Happy March Madness! Go Zags!

I do make things for people other than Kaylee, but I’ll be honest, I had a lot of orders to fill for her. Ever since I made Herbert, she’s been asking for a snail which she calls Junebug. The last time I left Iowa, she handed me a bag full of roving right before we said goodbye.

Sometime in early November, I received another text from Kaylee. It was a screenshot of her email showing a class put on by THE BEST CRAFT/KNITTING SHOP IN THE STATE OF IOWA. She told me that she would like to know how to make these mittens. I said, “okay, I will work on that.” You probably could have guessed that Kaylee received these in the mail a few weeks ago with this pattern all written up for her.

Now, I have to say, if you live in Iowa City, you should go to at least one class at Home Ec. It’s pretty often that I wish I had a local store like Home Ec over here on the west coast where I could take a class and learn a new craft (I was never able to make it to their needle felting classes and I’m still so bummed). But if you know how to knit, purl, knit-in-the-round and already have other upper-level knitting skills, feel free to use this pattern to make yourself some darn cute mittens.

And if you have yet to learn these skills, come on over to my house in Washington or treat yourself to a class at your local yarn shop.

You’ll need:

Yarn of your choice – I used something similar to this and this color is pretty close to 8019

Thumb:
Using the size 6 needles, pick up the 12 stitches from thumb set-up (6 in each little row) AND a total of 4 extra stitches, one on each side of the two rows of 6. You should have a total of 16 stitches.
Rows 1 – 16: knit
Row 17: k2, k2tog, repeat until end of row
Row 18: knit
Row 19: k1, k2tog, repeat until end of row
Row 20: knit
Row 21: k2tog, repeat until end of row
Finish last four stitches by weaving end yearn back through to close the circle, weave in ends.